And they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
--Genesis 3:7


The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
--Song of Solomon 2: 13.


They shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig tree.
--Micah 4: 4


Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
--St. Matthew 7: 16


Now when he (Christ, very hungry, outside of Jerusalem) saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever. And presently the fig tree withered. away
--St. Matthew 21: 19


Why do figs, which are soft and sweet, damage the teeth?
--Aristotle, Problems, drawing the first conclusion about sugar and tooth decay


TRYGAEUS (singing): You shall have a fine house, no cares and the finest of figs. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus! Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!
LEADER OF THE CHORUS (singing): The bridegroom's fig is great and thick; the bride's very soft and tender.
--Aristophanes, in Peace


And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates, and of the figs.
--Numbers 13:23


O excellent! I love long life better than figs.
--Charmian's response in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra to learning she'll outlive her mistress...and prefiguring Cleopatra's suicide by an asp delivered in a basket of figs


CAPTAIN CUTTLE: Train up a fig-tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under the shade of it.
--Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son, chapter 19

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Figs

(Ficus carica)

Figs are one of the oldest cultivated fruits in the world--and also one of the oldest symbols for women's sexuality...because of their shape, texture, and seeds...because of their association with the fig leaves in the Garden of Eden.

The fig began life in Asia Minor--between Eastern Turkey and North India--and has spread to most parts of the world congenial to its growth. Its remains have been found in Neolithic excavations. On ancient Egyptian papyrus dating back to 1567-1085 BCE, it speaks itself about its origins:

"Hear the voice of the figtree:
'Compliments to my lady.
Who more noble than I?
Why not I your servant, if you have none?
They brought me from Syria
As plunder for the beloved.'"

--translated by Ezra Pound and Noel Stock from Boris de Rachewiltz' literal renderings of the hierogyphics into Italian.

It's mentioned in the Bible. Greeks claimed that the Goddess Demeter gave it to them--and their athletes wore them as medals in sports contests.. Buddha gained enlightenment under a wild fig tree (though another species--the Ficus religiosa "bo" tree). Cato knew of 6 varietals and, 200 years later, Pliny talked about some 29. The Romans brought them to England. The Spanish carried them to the New World in the 1500s, where missionary fathers in the 1700s planted them in California from San Diego to Sonoma, creating the Mission Fig.

There are four main types of fig: caprifigs, Smyrna figs, common figs, and San Pedro figs. Caprifigs don't produce fruit, just pollen. Common figs don't require pollination. But Smyrna figs depend on pollen-carrying fig wasps from caprifig trees to pollinate them. San Pedro figs produce 2 crops a year and, oddly enough, the first crop doesn't need pollination--but the second, maturing in late summer, absolutely requires pollination by the fig wasp.

How does this pollination or "caprification" work? Actually, it's an interesting story. Smyrna fig trees do not produce blossoms on their branches; instead they produce huge numbers of tiny flowers inside female receptacles that ultimately grow into the fleshy fig. Pollination, clearly, is a problem. How to get pollen--which is produced only by the caprifig tree--into these closed receptacles filled with tiny flowers? (The "real" fruit, of course, are the tiny seeds inside the fig that are produced from all these flowers.)

Enter the stingless wasp called Blastophaga psenes, who adores the fruity receptacles. Its life takes place in a couple of stages, involving being born in a caprifig male receptacle, mating, moving into another fig receptacle to lay eggs, and dying. In April, then, a bunch of wasps will be born in caprifig receptacles (male) and stay there while the fruit produces pollen. When they leave in June, covered in pollen, a good percentage of them will enter the receptacle of an edible female cultivar, lay their eggs, and effectively fertilise the long-styled female flowers there. They generally die on the spot--and they and their eggs are absorbed into the fruit itself.

Needless to say, growers increase the chances of bumper crops of fruit by hanging bunches of the caprifig fruits in the female Smyrna fig trees. The caprifigs are picked just before the wasps are ready to leave and they are hung in baskets or strung on wires from the branches of the cultivated fig trees to be pollinated. New caprifigs are strung among the branches every 4 days over a three-week period.